The Birds & The Bees

At this time of year especially, you'd be forgiven for wondering what a title like that might allude to! Nothing explicit here, I promise, just a brief mention of a few pretty birds around Tring reservoirs last week, and then a switch to the dark and divisive world of mining bees. These tough little loners aren’t afraid to dive into combat, writhing around in the dirt, bodies discarded left, right and centre. It’s worse than a "Die Hard" feature! But, more on that to come...

First up, a pair of Mandarins on Wilstone reservoir on Friday, on choppy waters.

A pair of Garganey were also around and I spotted my first Common Tern & first House Martin of the year - a single bird of each flying amongst the Black-headed Gulls over the barley bales.

But, it was earlier in the week, along the footpath of the NW shoreline of Tringford reservoir, that there had been this mass emergence and frantic, aggressive mating event of mining bees, worthy of an 18 Certificate. I’ve not been able to narrow down the ID from the broad classification of an Andrena species. With at least 60 to choose from in the UK, it's not straightforward, although there are a handful of likely candidates. (Note: see update at end of post, on 13/4/2015 - species very probably Yellow-legged Mining Bee (Andrena flavipes)).

In spite of coming across a good 200+ busy bees all zooming about the sandy pathway together, these guys live solitary lives. Females can and will share entrance holes to nest burrows but that's as sociable as they get. The female digs her own chamber underground and, after mating (if she survives!), she’ll deposit each egg in a sealed cell with pollen and nectar.

Entrance hole (approx 7mm diameter) and a bee using an alternative route!

The bees were approx 12mm long. There were subtle but distinct differences between the sexes. The males (I presume) were a little more slender and lacked the dense, rich orange scopal hairs on the hind legs.

Male on top of female

Female (left) & Male (right): note the female's rich, darker orange scopal hairs on hind legs

I took some video footage with my macro lens (my first attempt - bigger depth of field needed next time). The opening scene appears fairly innocuous: bees buzzing around the path where there were 100s of tiny entrance holes to chambers underground, often just 5cm apart. Getting a little closer to the action, I filmed one hole and it revealed a number of males going in and then backing out, presumably looking for a female. However, getting intimate, the behaviour I most wanted to capture was the aggressive, mass mating attempts (I assume, although, the violence and mortality rate looked decidedly counterproductive!). Females were mobbed by numerous males, all seemingly trying to mate with her. Bee bodies were strewn along the path, listless or lifeless, both male and female causalities. In fact, I managed to photograph a male apparently feeding on or killing another bee with his tongue (see, I told you it was worse than "Die Hard"!). I can't quite discern whether it's another male or the female he is attacking (there are 3 bees involved)?! Either way, the female ended up dead/dying.

A male with his proboscis (tongue) in another bee's thorax!

Dead/dying female

Back to the video footage. As you watch the ball of bees rolling around on the ground, picking up dirt and horse hairs, it’s possible to spot the single female in amongst them. She has the rich, darker orange scopal hairs on the hind legs. I slowed down a sequence of footage which shows her seemingly trying to escape the clutches of the males, only to be pulled back into the ball (I removed the audio as it was mostly road noise).


I would love to know what species of mining bee this is and to get a better idea of what on earth was going on in this gladiatorial mating frenzy. Comments/mails welcome.

A little shy - A preening Greylag Goose by Marsworth reservoir last week

Update 13/4/2015: I've been following a mining bee sighting on ISPOT which looked identical to the bees at Tringford. The identification given there is for a Yellow-legged Mining Bee (Andrena flavipes). After doing a little research, I'm satisfied this is probably the correct ID for these bees. There's a nice fact sheet on them HERE. "The males look different to the females. They are slimmer, covered in sparser hair and lack the dense brush of orange-yellow hairs on the hind leg" & their length ranges from 10-13cm. Both these facts, as well as appearance, fit exactly with my observations. They are common in southern England, will collect pollen from a wide range of plants and flowers, flying from March to May and again from June to early August.

The Embrace of Common Toads

Hemel (BMT): I spent Monday morning with a crowd of frisky Toads. That’s not a euphemism for the sort of people I hang out with, I do mean the amphibians, warts and all. Bank Holiday Monday dawned bright and still. However, I wasn’t going to be fooled and frozen and had put on woolly jumper, hat and gloves. Needless to say, with temperatures reaching above 13 deg C, all 3 were eventually discarded. The warmth of Spring has finally arrived. Thank goodness.

Sunday evening I’d learned that Common Frogs (Rana temporaria) and Common Toads (Bufo bufo) had spawned on Trust land (many thanks to the keen observer). I don’t remember ever having seen Toad strings so their presence was too interesting a sight to resist. In fact, not only were there Toad strings, there were Toads and they were still locked in the mating embrace, amplexus, and spawning.

Much of the time, the pairs remained under water but it was still possible to see the string of double-stranded eggs emerging from the rear of the female (the string can also be triple-stranded, whilst single-stranded egg strings would indicate the far more rare Natterjack Toad (Epidalea calamita)). The male on her back releases sperm cells to fertilise the eggs as they are laid.

The whole process was extremely slow. I spent over 2.5 hours watching them and 1 pair produced perhaps 30cm of eggs. The female steered proceedings, at one point climbing up, through, onto and over vegetation and slowly, slowly going back into the water, her trail of spawn behind her. Somehow, she manages to manoeuvre herself and the male, so as to tie the spawn to vegetation. Very clever indeed.

Toad strings can contain between 400-5000 eggs and be between 3 and 4.5 metres long. One of the Toad pairs on site had opted to spawn where there wasn’t any vegetation to attach the strings to. As a consequence, the pair were hidden and wriggling inside a large ball of eggs approx 20cm in diameter. I’m not sure how long that will last before perhaps a Fox gobbles it up.

Speaking of predators, I did wonder if maybe one of the female Toads had survived an attack of some sort. She had a very badly damaged right back foot. Unlike Common Frogs, Common Toads posses a fairly potent defence mechanism. When under threat, they secrete a foul tasting toxin, bufagin, from glands in the skin. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to dissuade species like Grey Herons, Mink, Rats and Hedgehogs from guzzling them.

The female's badly damaged right back foot

The male's right back foot for comparison

Making their way over the reeds

Common Toads are nocturnal, solitary creatures, coming together only for the short breeding period, following hibernation. Adults return annually to the same breeding ground. And, research suggests that those adults will also have been spawned at that site and their spawn too will return there to breed. Their diet consists mainly of invertebrates caught with their sticky tongue using a “sit and wait” or “whilst I’m passing” strategy. Basically, they are opportunistic feeders, responding to movement.

Until this week, I knew next to nothing about Common Toads and it was interesting to discover that they are 1 of only 6 (or 7, depending on your view on re-introductions) native UK amphibians. It’s a small and select group made up of 1 or probably 2 species of Frog; 2 species of Toad and 3 species of Newt:

Newts	Toads	Frogs
Great Crested Newt (Triturus cristatus)	Common Toad (Bufo bufo)	Common Frog (Rana temporaria)
Smooth Newt (Lissotriton vulgaris)	Natterjack Toad (Epidalea calamita)	*Pool Frog (Pelophylax lessonae)
Palmate Newt (Lissotriton helveticus)

* Evidence suggests that there was/is a native species of British Pool Frog, which was re-introduced within the last decade, into East Anglia. There are, of course, a few non-native amphibian species around too but I won’t list those here.

So, within the first week of April, we’ve had both Common Frogs and Common Toads spawning. Having watched 4 pairs all still releasing and fertilising eggs, it should be possible to follow their progress quite accurately. Tadpoles should hatch within about 10-14 days from laying. It’ll take a further 8-12 weeks for the toadlets to fully develop, leaving the water en mass. And, it’ll be 4 years before these youngsters reach sexual maturity, ready to return here to spawn themselves. The cycle of life continues.

Scarce & Secretive: GARGANEY!

Stills taken from video footage, showing male and female Garganey at Long Crendon

Long Crendon: The RSPB describe the ever-so-attractive little dabbling Garganey duck as “scarce and very secretive”….Shhh.... I say those rich, chocolatey tones with vanilla accents make me think of Viennetta ice-cream or Tiramisu. No? Just me then. Ok, anyway, the species is strictly migratory, spending the harsh winter months far, far, far away in southern Africa, India and Australasia. But, now is the time of their return to UK breeding territory in central and southern England. Just 14-93 pairs will breed here, according to the RSPB. By my reckoning that makes this Easter’s sighting of 3 males and 1 female, at Long Crendon, west of Aylesbury, pretty special.

The birds were first spotted on the 4th and I didn’t hold out much hope that they’d still be there on Easter Day. By 14:15 on Sunday, I couldn’t resist any longer. I jumped in the car and thought I’d give it a go. I was fully prepared to arrive to an empty pond or, if I was lucky, a pair of Mallards.

As I parked up, the skies darkened and started to spit rain at me. Pah! It was going to take more than that, especially when I discovered that the fantastic little birds were still there. The rain eventually cleared away although the thick, dark clouds weren’t quite so forgiving. I watched the energetic ducks paddling fast, twisting this way and that, picking off insects that had landed on the surface of the water and occasionally even displaying. They would produce strange crackles, clicks and whistles. The males would create this quick display motion where they’d put their heads behind their wing and fan it out, whilst still paddling forward. It was over in a flash. There was also a lot of head waggling, neck stretching and shaking of tail feathers. All in all, a sight to brighten any dull Spring day.

I took some video footage although light levels, rain and distance were against me. It’s not great but it’s a record of this “scarce and very secretive” (shh..) migrant.


At 15:30, the stillness was shattered by the crack of gun fire just 100 metres from the pond. “Shhh...” wasn’t going to cut it. The steely Mallards didn’t flinch but the rather more sensitive Garganey, accustomed to the quiet marshes of Norfolk and Suffolk, were up and out of there. They flew as if to return to the water only to be scared off by further shots. That was it. They flew east, likely along the river, and I lost them.

Hoping that the birds might yet decide to come back, I stayed in the area. South of the pond there were numerous Red Kites, circling high and in flocks. I counted at least 19 and, with them, 5+ Common Buzzards. By 15:50 the Garganey hadn’t come back, the shooting party was still going strong and I called it a day. Those were the best views I’ve had of Garganey and were well worth the drive, the rain and the gun fire.

A Stonechat Calls & A Greenshank Hops

Pitstone Hill & College Lake: It’s got to be at least 2 weeks since I posted any ropey video footage. You’re in for a real treat this Easter with not just one, not even two but three gloriously average (some might even say poor) short film clips. At least the sun was shining and the rippling images induced by strong gusts of wind weren’t too frequent.

First up is the pair of Stonechats (Saxicola rubicola) on Pitstone Hill. I half expected them to have gone by today so it was a lovely surprise to find them still fluttering and calling. The first film is a montage of clips featuring both birds and, in particular, the male and a few of his calls. The second film (which is also included in the first) is a very short clip of just the male perched and calling, producing his stones-being-bashed-together noise. The sound quality leaves a lot to be desired but is hopefully good enough.



Next up, I’ve saved the best (oh, ok, I mean worst) till last. Leave them wanting more (and better?!)! Having watched a flock of about 15 brilliant Yellowhammers fly up from the crop field and land in a tree, I bumped into Lee. We exchanged bird news and he let me know there was a Greenshank (Tringa nebularia) over at College Lake.

Comfortably settled in at the Octagon hide, I found what I thought was the Greenshank. I’d expected it to be moving and feeding and thus easy to spot, and had stupidly left the scope behind. Anyway, I whiled away a very pleasant hour with a family who was also there enjoying the birds. Between us we decided the wader next to the “dead male Shoveler” (which turned out not to be dead) was indeed the Greenshank. It spent most of its time roosting but did occasionally rouse itself to preen and hop about on one leg. In fact, I never saw its second leg in the whole hour I was there. If ever it wanted to move, it hopped. And, at one stage, it even seemed to be making a half hearted attempt at feeding on one leg, hopping in the water and simultaneously scanning the shallows for food. At approx 65 metres distance the footage is pretty awful but I think you can just about tell it's a Greenshank. I’ve removed the audio because it was principally bird-hide-banter about Coots killing each other (aka mating), male Shovelers rising from the dead (mmm... a bird-themed Easter message perhaps!?!) and the mouth-watering prospect of homemade hot cross buns. That reminds me, I must get to M&S for my annual indulgence of toffee fudge & belgian chocolate hot cross buns. Golly, I hope they still sell them!

Happy Easter!